With the Christmas countdown already happening… are YOU really ready for the holidays? OK, so YOU are… but what about your company’s books?
While retail accounts are soaring this time of year, many other industries slow down and some even come to a halt. In the colder regions, construction companies often find themselves downsizing for the winter. Other service-based businesses, such as pool businesses, lawncare, and marinas may completely shut down and take a vacation.
How ready are you for that slow period?
Here are a few extremely helpful bookkeeping tips to get small business get through the holidays (relatively) unscathed:
- Stay readily on top of your cashflow
- While this seems like a no-brainer, many business owners find themselves not paying attention as closely because business has slowed. Knowing your cash flow means knowing exactly what you have sold and that you have a clear picture of what there is to bill as well as what is coming down the pipeline for later. Stay on top of it now so that you don’t eat lumps of coal later.
- Chase those collections accounts
- You may not have any new business coming in right now, but what about those jobs that fell behind in their payments to you previously? Do you still have outstanding invoices to collect on? To avoid awkward conversations, use QuickBooks to quickly and easily send out those reminder statements that capture everything still due. An itemized list of all outstanding invoices will be delivered professionally and efficiently to their inbox as a reminder. Sometimes it only takes a little reminder to get the bills paid.
- Review terms and payment methods
- It’s always good to do an end-of-year review to see what worked and what didn’t in previous quarters. Are you trying to “be fair” and offer longer payment terms but the money just isn’t coming in? It may be time to rethink those payment terms. There is nothing “unfair” about asking for your money sooner. You did the work, so get paid for it! Consider reducing that 60-day payment term to 30 or even 10. Whatever you do, just make sure to communicate that with your clients well in advance. Write it as a note at the bottom of your invoices… send an email blast with revised rates and terms… send it by smoke signals…. Just make sure to communicate!
- QuickBooks allows users to accept both ACH and credit card payments easily. If you accept credit card payments, there will be a small percentage fee for using the feature; however, ACH payments received through QuickBooks do not charge you a fee and the payment is immediately applied against the invoice that it was received for, making it less work for you too!
If you get stuck and have questions, feel free to give us a shout at (423)207-2497 and our Bookkeeping team will be happy to help!
